


I'm Gonna Give All My Secrets Away

by piratekelly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blanket Kate Argent Warning, Canonical Discussion of Suicide, Jackson is Still a Kanima (whoops), M/M, One or Two Instances of Ableist Language, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers for all of Season 4, description of panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 18:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3458195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratekelly/pseuds/piratekelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is feeling less and less like a person as the days go by, even in the months after the nogitsune was banished from his body and captured, hopefully to never be released again.</p>
<p>He might be ready to allow himself to move on from the crushing guilt he carries, but just when it seems like things are improving, his friends wind up on a supernatural hit list.  Fortunately, he knows who to call.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that person is Danny.</p>
<p>He’s not sure how he feels about that.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Basically season 4 with Danny aka the way it should have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Gonna Give All My Secrets Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nubianamy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubianamy/gifts).



> I've never written any canon compliant fic or non-Sterek fic, so this was a real challenge. (Sorry I forgot Jackson was a werewolf. I liked the scene too much to cut it.) I hope this is acceptable!
> 
> And to my friends Meagan and Rapha, who read over this and gave me so much amazing advice that it made the late night writing marathons easier to get through. Even more thanks to Meagan for always being ready to help me in a pinch, and for being the best beta a girl could ask for.

_\--_

_It’s not a place where you’ll find God_. 

\--

Stiles is going through the motions on a Tuesday morning three months after his spell as a Japanese murder demon, when he gets a feeling low in his gut that says something is _wrong_.

He’d woken up slowly, taking the time to breathe in the myriad of scents that make up his bedroom before opening his eyes, counting his fingers, and sighing in relief when there are only five on each hand.  Today, his wakefulness is real.

He nearly falls to the floor when he can’t get his feet untangled from the sheets he pushed to the foot of the bed in his sleep.  Stiles doesn’t remember having a nightmare, but his bed is never so disheveled when he manages to get even a half decent night’s sleep.

Eventually the sheets loosen their hold on his ankles and he slowly stumbles his way to the bathroom across the hall, yawning and idly scratching at the skin of his lower abdomen as he shuts the door behind him.  There’s a damp towel hanging on the rack behind him, which means his dad is working the day shift today, and Stiles shrugs to himself as he turns the tap all the way over until steam is steadily rising from the sink.

(He can’t stand to be cold anymore, not since the nogitsune left him for good.  All he remembers is the chill in his bones and emptiness in the following days.  Sense memory sucks sometimes.)

He makes quick work of brushing his teeth and washing his face. Most mornings he tries to avoid looking in the mirror, afraid to find that what’s looking back isn’t him at all, but old habits are hard to break.  He reaches to his right and uncaps his hair gel, scooping a dime size portion out with his middle finger.  He spreads the substance over his hands, rubbing them together before he reaches to card his fingers through his hair, and looks in the mirror.

There are dark, purple circles underneath his eyes - he’s pretty sure his bags have bags - and there’s a fine layer of spotty stubble forming on his jaw.  When did he last shave?  How long has it been since he properly took care of himself?  No wonder his dad looks so concerned all the time.  He would be too, if he could muster up the energy to care.

At that thought he rinses his hands off, hair forgotten, and turns to make his way downstairs for breakfast, trying very hard to not focus on how sad it is that even pretending to be a functioning human being can be tainted by a whole lot of _literally_ nothing.

It’s as he’s choking down an acceptable portion of Wheaties (jesus, he hasn’t even _grocery shopped_ ) that the bad feeling in his gut comes, like a sour taste in his mouth.  He double checks the expiration date on the milk again, but it doesn’t expire for another week.  He takes a deep breath and focuses on the noises around him, the gentle hum of the refrigerator, cars driving down the street, even the crackling of his cereal as it starts to go soggy, anything to not think about what this feeling means.

He should go upstairs.  He should change clothes.  He should grab his bag and drive to school to finish catching up on last semester before the year starts and force this feeling out and as far away as possible, because he can’t… He’s not…

All he knows is that this gut feeling means some serious shit is about to hit a very fast-moving fan, and he’s not at all sure he’s ready for it.

Confirmation comes when Scott calls him 20 minutes later.  Soon enough he’s in the jeep with Scott, Malia, Kira, and Lydia in tow, and they’re on their way to Mexico.

\--

When Stiles gets home five days later, exhausted and covered in desert grime and reeking of his own sweat, all he wants is to crash on the nearest flat surface and sleep for at least 12 hours.  Unfortunately, it’s already 2AM and tomorrow is the first day of school, and Stiles knows that if he sleeps, there is no force on this planet that could wake him after just five hours.

So he showers, scrubs his skin pink as he watches the rust-orange water full of dust and dirt swirl down the drain.  The room is quiet, just the sound of water meeting porcelain and his own increasingly erratic breathing as the steam rises around him.  Everything is just this side of too cloudy now, air heavy in his lungs, and he doesn’t have time to stop the attack before it hits.  In a matter of seconds he finds himself sitting on the floor of the shower, water rushing all around him as he remembers.  Remembers the pink stains on the sink after he’d washed his hands clean of Coach’s blood.  Remembers thinking that the stain of Scott’s blood dripping down the perfectly balanced steel of the katana gave him such satisfaction.  Remembers his own voice telling him that Allison’s red nails had looked so pretty compared to the pale skin of her lifeless hand, that Lydia’s scream had left the sweetest taste on his tongue.

He feels a cold hand settle on his shoulder and he screams before he can hold it back.  He screams for all he put his dad through, the fear he instilled in his friends, for _Allison_ , god, does he scream for her, for everyone who fell in the path of all the destruction he left behind.  He screams for the boy he used to be, before that night in the woods, the one who lived in blissful ignorance with his asthmatic best friend.  The one who only had to worry about homework and his ten year plan to make Lydia fall in love with him.

He screams because it feels like the only thing he knows how to do anymore.

The hand on his shoulder is shaking him now, trying to pull him out from underneath the cold spray of the shower.  “--iles!   _Stiles_!  Stiles, it’s me, it’s Malia--”

He can hear Malia calling him, and he wants so desperately to get to her, because then he’ll be safe, then he can just let himself go for a little while. He won’t have to pretend that everything’s okay, that he’s not struggling to remember that these things aren’t real anymore, because they both know it’s not.

She finally gives up, pulling him out of the shower and onto the cold tile floor, the shock of the temperature bringing him just close enough to the surface that he has a better chance of getting himself back under control.  They spend long minutes sitting on the bathroom floor, foreheads pressed together as he tries to match her breathing, calm the pounding beat of his heart.  Her fingers are carding through the wet hair at the nape of his neck, almost like his mother used to when he felt sick, and it helps to calm him, to bring him back to the world around him instead of the war he’s constantly fighting in his head.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, wincing at how wrecked his voice sounds.

He can feel her shrugging just before she pulls back.  “I don’t like your heart beating that fast.  You sound like prey.”

He laughs, though it’s weak.  “I feel much better, knowing that you don’t want to eat me.”

“Progress, remember?”

Stiles knows she’s making fun of him, of all those days they spent in his room trying to help her with the shift, or teach her how to deal with humanity, so he just rolls his eyes and falls back to where he can lean against the cabinet.  It’s much more comfortable to breathe now that he’s not awkwardly hunched over, but it makes him all too aware of the fact that he’s very, very wet, and very, very naked.  It’s not like they haven’t had some close calls with nudity - things got a little heated between them before Stiles realized that the last thing he needed was a relationship and she agreed that they were better friends than significant others - but she’s never actually seen him completely naked.

“You smell embarrassed.  Why are you embarrassed?”

“Well, you’re... _here_ , and I’m, um...” he gestures to himself.

“What, naked?”  She scoffs, waving a hand in dismissal as she stands.  “The first time you met me I was naked.  Fair’s fair.”

Stiles can only gape at her flippancy.  He’s just not used to people being so casual about nudity.  He’s been in plenty of locker rooms with other naked guys, but there’s always been a distinct air of “no homo” lingering in the room whenever it’s time to hit the showers.  He has to remind himself sometimes that Malia isn’t like most people, at least those who grew up entirely human and subscribed to certain societal ideas about the human body.  It’s the thing Stiles likes most about her - she’s brash and honest, and won’t coddle you.  She can comfort, but will only do it for so long before she’ll tell you to pick yourself up and figure it out.  

Sometimes he really needs that.

“Now dry off and put these on,” she says, dropping his favorite pajama pants and his softest t-shirt into his lap.  “I’ll be in your room.”

He dries off and gets dressed quickly, already feeling a chill settling in his bones as he makes quick work of brushing his teeth.  He catches a glance at the dark circles under his eyes before flicking the light off and walking to his room.

Malia’s already in her pajamas and sitting on the edge of his bed when he shuts the door behind him.  He doesn’t bother with the lights; on nights like these he sleeps with them on, just in case the nightmares come.  He always woke up in dark places when he was possessed, so knowing he’ll be able to count his fingers immediately helps keep some of his anxiety at bay.

“Come on, Stiles.  You need rest.”

They climb into bed together, Stiles facing the wall with his back to her chest as she lays an arm over his waist.  With the help of her body heat and his blankets he warms up quickly, letting the fatigue he’s been fighting all day take over and he feels himself giving in to the siren call of sleep.

He might ask Malia to stay, and she might whisper a promise that she’d never leave him behind, but he can’t be sure.  He’s out before he can think to ask.

\--

_Green is for the things I understand.  Yellow is for “I’m working on it,” and...Red means I have no clue.  I’m mostly using red._

\--

So the Hales have been robbed of money Stiles didn’t know existed, Kate’s alive, something’s going on with Derek that, Stiles would wager, is definitely not good, and now they’re dealing with murder.  Again.

Stiles would ask himself if things could possibly get any worse, but he knows he’ll get an answer whether he poses the question or not.  It takes three school periods and an awkward conversation with a mostly naked Greenberg asking Stiles if he thinks the rash on his upper ass is something to be worried about before Stiles gets the answer he definitely did not want.

It’s as he and Scott are making their way to lacrosse tryouts, discussing the importance of telling people bad news by using the appropriate medium (you don’t tell someone their sister is un-dead over a text, you just don’t) when he sees the source of all of his future regular teenage boy problems:

Liam Dunbar.  Who is, apparently, very good at lacrosse.

His hatred for this little attempted usurper of Scott’s captain status is nearly instantaneous, a hot flash of protectiveness flaring in his chest when he sees Scott’s smile drop as Liam scores _another_ goal against...some guy who is definitely not Danny.  Who is that guy?  More importantly, where the hell is Danny?

He may be getting side tracked.

The point still stands.  Stiles really doesn’t like this kid because he’s gunning for one of the few things left in this world that bring a genuine smile to Scott’s face.  Not one of his “hey I found the bag of Doritos mom hid” smile.  It’s “I’m not asthmatic anymore” and “I can control the shift” and “Hey, Stiles, I think I’m in love” smiles.  The one that makes Stiles happy because it means that Scott is happy, and Scott deserves all the happiness in the world because he’s the best person anyone could ever have by their side.

One of them needs to be happy these days.

So when they’re standing at the front desk of the Beacon Hills ER, supporting Liam and his probably broken ankle, he tells Scott that despite everything on their shoulders, all the lives in their hands, it’s okay to want something for himself sometimes.  It isn’t selfish to move on when your only other option is to wallow.

Scott just follows his mom, leaving Stiles to wonder if he’ll ever be able to accept that advice for himself.

He’s not holding his breath.

\--

And then, _and then_ , just to put the wind in the sails of the impending supernatural shitstorm, Derek calls and tells him that the husband and wife that were murdered by a dude with a tomahawk and no mouth were wendigos.  Actual flesh-eating creatures of the night who kept dead people hung up like game in a meat locker in the middle of their goddamn house, according to Lydia.  And now their son, who was _also_ a wendigo, is dead on the roof of the hospital, spinal cord severed by Mouthless Dude.  And Lydia?  Lydia’s writing her math notes in code that apparently needs a cipher key.

Honestly, Stiles just wants to throw his hands in the air and call it a day.

But then Scott calls and mentions that maybe he bit Liam without asking nicely first, and that he’s tied up at Scott’s house, and could Stiles maybe come by and help him explain bloodlust and how to tune out parental private time because Scott’s really not good at that part.

Stiles pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing.  “I’ll be there in an hour.  I have somewhere to go first.”

Scott pauses, but relents.  “Alright, dude.”

Stiles hangs up before Scott gets the nerve to ask where he’s going.

\--

He’s been sitting outside the Mahealani house for a solid 20 minutes, debating whether or not what he’s about to propose is going to work or not.  It’s not fair to ask Danny to let go of the illusion that Beacon Hills is totally normal that he’s been clinging to for at least the last six months, but if Stiles is being honest, they kind of need Danny.

Danny, who is climbing into the passenger side of the jeep.  Right now.

It says a lot about Stiles’ inner turmoil that he didn’t hear Danny coming at all.  Every little noise seems to make him jump anymore.

“What do you want, Stiles?”

“Me?” Stiles huffs. “What makes you think I want anything?”

Danny just raises an eyebrow.  Stiles has to admit that it’s better if he just gives up the ghost.

“Alright, that was weak,” Stiles concedes, reaching in to his pocket where he stashed a few sheets of Lydia’s notes, and hands them over.  “Does this mean anything to you?”

Danny seems a mixture of confused and hesitant, but opens the folded papers anyway.  While Danny looks it over, Stiles takes a moment to admire the way Danny’s skin seems to glow in the moonlight.  Has his skin always been so flawless?  That _jawline_ just...how did Stiles not notice this before?  Stiles has almost always found Danny objectively attractive, at least, but apparently he’d missed something on his path to discovering his bisexuality because Danny is the only one who’s made his blood rush since the nogitsune, and --

“It’s code.”

_Yeah it is_ , he thinks.  “Wait, what?”

Danny’s lips quirk up in a sort-of smile before handing the papers back.  “It’s code.”

“So does that mean you can un...code it?”

“That’s a really incomplete file, Stiles.”

“So you can’t uncode it?”

“It’s de-code, and no,” Danny sighs.  “I can’t.  Who wrote that anyway?”

“Uh…” Stiles replies.  “Uh, Lydia.  Lydia wrote it.”

Danny raises an eyebrow in disbelief.  He’s got great eyebrows.  “Lydia wrote this?”

“Sort of,” he mutters, scratching the back of his neck nervously.  “She, um… Okay, you know what?”

Danny frowns.  “...What?”

“Can we stop pretending that you don’t know what’s been going on?”

“You mean with the werewolves and the dead people and,” Danny waves a hand at Stiles.  “Whatever’s going on with you?”

Stiles flounders for a second, doing what probably looks like a great impression of a fish out of water while he processes.  He knew Danny at least had an idea of what was going on (he and Scott aren’t exactly _quiet_ when they whisper) but he didn’t know Danny was as far in the know as he seems to be.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be quite so…”

“Informed?”

“I was gonna say ‘direct’, but...that too.”

They both laugh awkwardly, but it quickly gives way to silence.  It’s not even a little bit comfortable.  Danny is looking out the window, and Stiles is awkwardly picking at a hangnail on his thumb, and this situation has derailed so quickly that Stiles isn’t really sure where to go from here.

“So what do you want from me, Stiles?”

This is the part Stiles has struggled with the most - he doesn’t have the right to ask this. And if he’s being completely honest, he doesn’t know why it’s so important that he does, but he has this _feeling_ that it’s the right thing to do.  Contrary to popular belief, he actually likes Danny; he’d helped Stiles out in history for a couple days over the summer when Stiles was given a research project to make up for the time he missed after everything.  Danny is one of the good ones, and Stiles just feels this urge to protect after how kind Danny was to him. They’re barely friends, and Danny won’t understand _why_ it’s so important that he not be anywhere near Beacon Hills for the foreseeable future, but Stiles has to try.  If he doesn’t and something bad happens, Stiles will never forgive himself.

“I want you to leave.”

Danny turns then, brows furrowed in confusion.  “What?”

“I want - No, I…” Stiles groans, frustrated, because he just can’t find the words to express how important this is.  “I _need_ for you to leave, Danny.”

“You need me to leave what?  The car?”

“I’m glad someone here has jokes, but I’m not laughing,” Stiles snaps.

“Hey,” Danny murmurs, sliding towards him.  Stiles can’t stop his body from flinching; he manages to keep his reaction contained for the most part, but Danny must have noticed it anyway, because he’s moving back to his original seat, hands raised.  He’s looking at Stiles like he’s never seen him before, and it makes Stiles uncomfortable.

“What happened to you, Stiles?”

Stiles can’t help but snort derisively, because that’s not even the real question anymore.  A lot of things have happened to him recently, and he doesn’t even know where to begin to explain.

“Okay.”

Stiles looks at him, shocked.  “What?”

“Okay,” Danny repeats.  “I’ll go.”

Stiles exhales, body slumping in relief.  “Thank you, Danny.”

“This conversation isn’t over, you know.”

He chuckles to himself, just a little.  “Just...make some shit up and go see Jackson or something.  I’ll see you in a couple weeks.”

Danny nods, reaching for the door handle.  “Now I have to go to bed.  Early flight.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Danny replies, smiling.  “I’m going to visit Jackson.  We’ve been planning this for weeks.”

Stiles may or may not flail a little.  Danny won’t ever tell.  “But I just -- and you just let me?”

“It’s nice to know someone cares, Stiles.”

And with that, Danny steps out of the jeep and shuts the door.  As he’s walking away, though, Stiles has a thought.

“Hey, Danny?”

Danny turns, hands in his pockets.  “Yes, Stiles?”

“Look into a new kid at the school named Liam.”

“You’re suspicious of the freshman?”

He’s not even going to ask how Danny knows who he is already.  “You’re not?”

Danny shrugs as though he’s conceding the point and turns to walk back to his house.  Stiles waits until Danny’s in his house before turning the engine over and pulling back onto the road.

It’s time to go talk to Scott about how his plans still suck.

\--

_It’s a list of supernaturals in Beacon Hills. It’s a dead pool. And we’re all on it_.

\--

Full moon.

That’s just… _great_.  Excellent.  The timing could not be better.

Or it could.  But, you know.  Beggars, choosers, etc.

(He should probably backtrack a little.)

Kira’s adorable attempt at being a vixen somehow managed to charm everybody’s favorite denial wolf into coming to the (intervention) party of the year and Stiles has to admit that he’s impressed.  She gets flustered and awkward when she’s nervous, but she managed to keep her cool long enough to pull off what might loosely qualify as kidnapping.  Or is definitely kidnapping.  Whatever.  

He should be embarrassed at the implication that he’s basically turning all of his friends into common criminals, but having a criminal record is sort of small potatoes compared to what they deal with on a regular basis.  It’s just one more thing on a list of offenses to lose sleep over.

Unfortunately, while in the process of committing her first solo criminal act, Kira forgot to tell Liam not to invite anybody.

So the lake house is unexpectedly full of drunken wolf and coyote chow, Lydia’s so angry she could probably scream, and Liam is completely out of control.  Malia’s not doing a whole lot better, but at least she knows what she is and what to expect.  It may be normal for her to struggle like this, but it never gets easier for Stiles.

He remembers watching Scott learn to control the shift, back when all of this started, how he struggled with the urge to maim everything in sight, how scared he was that he’d hurt the people he cared about the most.  He couldn’t understand, not even a little bit, how hard Scott had to fight his own body, his instincts; every bone and muscle in his body screaming to attack when all he wanted was to be normal again.

Now, after everything they’ve seen, the number of times he’s seen someone forced to do something against their will, it’s made this more of an issue of autonomy for him, something that’s much closer to him now than it was a year ago.  He remembers it so vividly, fighting the nogitsune every step of the way, watching his hands set traps, put together bombs, the warm, sticky feeling of someone’s blood as it seeped between his fingers.  If he hadn’t been so determined to win himself back, Scott would have been in pieces on Deaton’s exam room floor.  But maybe if he’d fought a little harder, the two of them never would have separated, and maybe an evil spirit wearing his face wouldn’t have killed Allison.  Maybe she’d still be here if he’d been just a little bit stronger.  

He’s slowly come to a few conclusions in the months since his possession.  Maybe, just maybe, if he gives up on trying to control things he can’t stop - the nightmares, the grief, the blame - then maybe they won’t have so much control over him either.

So when the leather cuffs on her wrists look like they’re about to give out, that’s what he tells her.

“I know what it’s like, Malia.  I remember everything I did and the worst part is I remember liking it because I felt powerful. I felt fearless.  And most of all, in control.  But when I came through it, I learned something else: control is overrated.”

When she doesn’t kill him a half second later, he’s relieved.  Maybe making the choice to give up some of his control is just what he needs.

\--

While Stiles was in the basement taking calculated (Scott would call them stupid, but Scott’s not here) risks, Liam was running through the forest and Lydia was upstairs, listening to the first cipher key.  What they learn after that sends his heart rate through the roof.

Looks like Stiles has a phone call to make.

\--

Unfortunately, Jackson answers Danny’s phone.

“Not that I’m not grateful to spend time with Danny, but fuck you for getting him involved.”

“Good to hear your voice, Jackson.  I’ve missed it so much,” Stiles deadpans.

“I’m serious, Stilinski.  Anything happens to him and I will castrate you.”

“Noted.”

Before he can continue, however, there’s muffled voices and shuffling coming from the other end, mutters of “dammit, Danny,” and “ _fuuuuuck_ you” carrying over the line, followed by a groan and a thud, and then silence.

“Um,” Jackson says.

Stiles sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “I know this is going to sound hypocritical coming from me, but are you guys done acting like five year olds?  I need to talk to Danny.”

“He’s, uh,” Jackson replies.  “A little incapacitated at the moment?”

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“Just… I’ll hold the phone up to his ear.”

“Forget it,” Stiles says.  “Have him call me back when he can feel his fingers again.”

\--

Stiles is laying on his back staring, watching the headlights from the street as they crawl across his ceiling, breaking up the shadows as they move.  The sweat is still cooling on his skin, even though his heart rate is nearly back to normal.  Another night, another nightmare, he thinks.  One of these days he’ll sleep again, but it probably won’t be for a while.  At least he managed to wake himself up this time.  Sometimes he can’t.

Malia’s off studying _real_ math, not some creepy banshee hit list code, with Lydia, and Scott’s with Chris trying to figure out how to get them out of this mess with the least amount of bloodshed possible.  Stiles isn’t sure how that’s going to work out, and honestly, he doesn’t have a lot of hope.  Worse than that, he just can’t muster up the energy to care.  They’re used to dealing with one major problem at once, two at the most.  But Kate?  Creepy, gigantic skeleton dudes?  Regular humans out to make a bunch of money off a person’s life?  The fact that, even after their many attempts to get rid of him, it’s apparently going to be Peter and the cockroaches at the end of the world?

Stiles doesn’t know where to start.

The decision is made for him when his phone vibrates on his nightstand.  Back before all of this he’d have hit the ignore button and gone back to sleep, but now his initial reaction is to panic.  Is it his dad?  Scott?  Is someone else dead?  Should he even bother answering?  He hasn’t been on the receiving end of a happy phone call in more than a year.  He knows he’s kidding himself, he’s going to answer, but one of these days, he’s not sure he’ll feel like it.

“H’llo?”

“Stiles?”

He sits up at the sound of Danny’s voice.  “Hey.  You okay?”

“Well,” Danny chuckles.  “I can feel my body again.”

Stiles remembers his time as Jackson’s paralyzed victim and shudders.  It’s small potatoes compared to being possessed, but terrifying all the same.  “Yeah, I know how you feel.”

“So what did you call for earlier?  Jackson said it sounded like it was probably important, but you know him.”

“Constantly underestimating anything that doesn’t involve him, yeah, I know,” Stiles replies.

“So what did you need?”

Stiles sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.  It’s too early (or late, he’s not really sure what to call it right now) for this, but they need all the help they can get as fast as they can get it.

“Lydia cracked the code.”

“How?”

“Cipher key.  It’s, uh.  It was Allison’s name.”

“Oh,” Danny whispers.  “How did she figure that out?”

“Danny, there are... _so_ many things you need to learn about us, and I wish I had the time to give you the answers you want, but…”

“I get it, Stiles,” Danny says.

“I want to explain, man, I really do.  I dragged you into this, and a very detailed, thorough explanation is the least I owe you.  We’re talking absolute bare minimum in gratitude showing, Danny, I’ll make this up to you however you want --”

“It’s okay, really.”

“-- but that list is a _deadpool_ , and all of our friends are on it, and we have exactly zero time for anything that doesn’t involve stopping this before something really bad happens.”  Silence meets him on the other end.  “Danny?”

“Did you just say deadpool?  As in, a hit list?”

Stiles lets out a deep breath as he focuses his sight back on the ceiling, gazing at nothing but shadows and wondering when he’ll stop running from them.

“Yeah, Danny.  A deadpool.  And I have a really bad feeling that it’s not the only one.”

Danny must be weighing his options, because he’s absolutely still in Stiles’ ear.  Stiles can’t really blame him for giving this some hard thought; neither one of them are sure if helping will compromise his safety, and Danny doesn’t have a connection to the pack like Stiles does. Outside of knowing them from school, Danny has no reason to get involved, to put his life on the line for them.  He stayed away as long as he did because he wanted to.  None of them were given a choice when it came to being part of the supernatural crime fighters of Beacon Hills, but Danny should have been given an option.  Stiles feels like a jackass the more he thinks about it, and he’s just about to give Danny an out when he responds.

“How can I help?”

Stiles’ entire body sags in relief.  Having Danny on their side feels like they might have a chance at avoiding certain death.  Again.

“If I send you all the files we have, can you track where they came from?  Maybe where they’re going?”

“I can try,” Danny says, uncertainly.  “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll use every trick I’ve got.”

“Thank you,” he breathes out.  “I’ll send you the files in a few hours.  I should try to get some sleep.”

Danny huffs out a laugh.  “You still look like hell, don’t you?”

“Hey,” Stiles replies, mock offended.  “I am always the spitting image of well rested.”

“Go to bed, Stiles.”

“If I must,” he sighs.

There’s a long pause that makes Stiles think Danny might have ended the call, but a quick glance at the screen tells him that they’re still connected.

“Stiles?”  He hums in response.  “Be safe.”

“I make no promises.”

Danny sighs like that’s the answer he was afraid of.

Stiles hangs up before Danny can say anything else.  He doesn’t need another person worrying about him.

He doesn’t get any more sleep, either.

\--

_If I could grade you on how profoundly you disturb me, you’d be an A+ student_.

\--

Now seems about as good a time as any to break out his brand new mystery board.  His dad hadn’t liked the small holes in the wall after he’d taken out all the tacks once their last crisis had passed, so they’d spent the first days of summer spackling and painting.  It was therapeutic. Giving Stiles something mundane to focus on while also reconnecting with his dad had done him some small measure of good.  A couple weeks later he’d found this beauty in his room and been obsessed with it ever since.  It has wheels, okay?  Stiles is all about embracing the little things these days.

It takes a few hours to get everything organized in a way that even kind of makes sense, but by the end he seems to have a decent web of information formed, all taped up in red (of course it’s red, they’re all pathetically clueless).  His board looks nice, but all it tells him is everything they already know: they need to find the benefactor.  All they have are crime scene photos and part of a list, and sadly, it doesn’t seem as though they’ll be making that discovery any time soon.

Hopefully Danny can find something, because they’ve got squat.

When he gets to school later he realizes that he put the most recent crime scene photos in his backpack instead of his notes, so he decides to take yet another hard look at them to see if there’s anything he’s missed instead of listening to Coach quote some inspirational movie speech as though he wrote it.  Or worse, actually try to teach. 

It’s when Coach starts berating him in front of the class, again, that Stiles finally places something about these photos that had been bugging him.  The bruising on one of the victims matches the hexagonal shape of the handle of the lacrosse stick Coach is swinging around.  Once he’s walked away, Stiles turns to look at Scott.

“The killer’s on the team.”

The second Coach has his back turned, Stiles whips out his phone.

<< Can you look into criminal history of the lacrosse team?

>> Narrow it down.

<< New guys first.

>> Give me a few hours.  
>> No luck on the list so far.

<< Thanks for looking anyway.

“ _Stilinski!_ ”

“Sorry, Coach.”

“Stop reminding me why I drink,” he grumbles.  “Every night.”

He knows that isn’t true (Sheriff’s kid - he’s got dirt on just about everyone in town) but lets Coach go on as if he never said a thing.  

He’s got an assassination to stop anyway.

\--

Of course the resident pretty boy is a killer.  The true Beacon Hills experience would be incomplete without a borderline sociopathic jock running around unsupervised.

(One of these days he’ll forgive Jackson for paralyzing him.  Today is not that day.)

Also, fun fact, it turns out that there’s a werewolf on their opponent’s team, and he and Liam deeply hate each other.  Liam, who can’t control his temper _or_ the shift, who’s been a werewolf for all of a week, who is also on the lacrosse team and still in extreme denial over the current state of his life.

All Stiles can do is stare at the ceiling and hope that this night won’t end up a complete disaster.

\--

The game starts and Stiles feels the familiar rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins as he focuses on the field and, more specifically, his friends.  Kira seems to be holding her own well enough for someone who’s never played in front of a crowd, and Scott’s apparently trying to reason with someone who, judging by the set of Scott’s shoulders, is being incredibly unreasonable.

Everything after that happens so fast that he has a hard time believing he actually witnessed it.

Kira scores a goal, which is amazing, but the celebration is short-lived when she’s pulled from the game for not sharing.  It’s stupid, but far from the most important thing happening at the moment.  Liam and other werewolf dude (Brett, his name is _Brett_ ) go down, but only one of them gets up.  Liam’s arm is definitely broken, but so is Brett’s leg, and Garrett is standing a little too close and looking a little too smug to be innocent in all of this.

And then Scott tells them that Garrett’s their guy, and everything kind of goes downhill from there.

It all comes together like this: Violet’s been arrested and will probably be held on multiple counts of attempted murder after trying to decapitate not only Brett but also Scott in the locker room, Garrett’s fucked off to who knows where, Brett winds up at Deaton’s because he’s been poisoned by a rare strain of wolfsbane, something is going on with Derek that no one is talking about, and Stiles is very, _very_ confused.

He knows that Scott would tell him stuff if it were important (he _knows_ , okay, Stiles let him have it after the whole Gerard thing) so he files away his many questions about Derek’s slow healing and Peter’s strength for a time when Deaton isn’t cutting open the chest of an unconscious werewolf.  Instead, he learns everything he can about this new and very rare strain of wolfsbane, and takes a second to thank whoever’s out there that you, apparently, only have to give it a way out of the body instead of rubbing ashes into the wound.  Stiles likes to keep whatever antidotes he can, but he’ll never be able to afford this shit, debt or no.

Once he knows Brett is going to be okay he calls Scott, who has nothing new to tell him except that his dad’s curiosity seems to be leading him in a direction they’d rather not have him go.  After that, he calls Malia, who tells him that Lydia cracked the code for the second list with Aiden’s name.  The big surprise there is that Parrish is on the list, so either he’s not telling them something, or he genuinely doesn’t know that he’s not 100% human.  Stiles would love to drop by the station to ask him a set of strange but specific questions, but he’s so tired, and he can tell he won’t sleep well tonight, and frankly he’d love nothing more than cool sheets and silence at the moment.

So he tells Deaton and Derek good night, not even looking in Peter’s direction as he makes his way to the waiting room and out the front door.

He goes home to an empty house, not that he expected anything less with all that’s happened tonight, and checks the locks before heading up to his room for the night.  After he changes and crawls into bed he texts his dad and Scott to let them know that he’s ok and safe at home, and shoots a quick text to Danny to update him 

<< Lydia has another list. Could you maybe look into the background of a girl who was arrested tonight?

 >> Why do you just assume that I can do that with no information?

 << Like you don’t have your computer set up to ping for new arrests in Beacon Hills.

 It takes a minute, but he finally gets a response.

 >> I’ll see what I can find.

 After that, the only thing Stiles finds is the inside of his eyelids as he drifts off.

 --

  _What if the third key is someone who isn’t dead?_

 --

 Stiles is starting to get really tired of new information cropping up every day.  It would be different if it were helpful information, but up until now it’s just been putting faces to names awaiting assassination and he in no way finds that helpful.  In fact, it’s just the opposite; there are more people to protect now than ever before, and more people are out to kill them than ever before.  They’re spread too thin, and the whole pack knows it.  Stiles has taken to spending his sleepless nights researching how a list like this could get out electronically, but isn’t able to be traced.  The internet, thus far, has proved itself to be useless, so he shoots Danny a quick text.

<< Google has failed me. Any luck?

>> A few parking tickets and one instance of petty theft, but nothing incriminating.

<< On anyone?

>> Nope. Nothing.

_How in the hell are these people assassins with no apparent criminal records?_ Stiles thinks to himself.  There has to be _something_ they can nail these guys with.

<< As long as we’re both stuck on the same page.

>> Funny.  I’ll let you know if I find anything.

He sighs and closes his phone as he gathers his things before heading to Lydia’s.  The girl in question has spent all morning angsting over her limited exchanges with Meredith, pacing and muttering, trying to glean any information she could that might be the tiniest bit helpful, but she’d come up with nothing.  It doesn’t help that they know nothing about the murderers who have already arrived in town. Violet and Garrett are absolute mysteries. They have no idea where to start with The Mute.  Stiles is feeling less and less confident as the hours pass, and he’s pretty sure he’s not the only one.

So while Scott is out searching for Liam - who was apparently kidnapped by Garrett - with Argent, Stiles heads over to Lydia’s to hopefully help her sort out whatever’s troubling her about this.

They spend the remaining hours of the afternoon tossing ideas around, actually making a list of everyone they know who’s died since Scott was bitten (the list is disturbingly long) but none of them work.  None of them.

But maybe, just maybe, Stiles thinks, coming at this from the other direction might work.

“Banshees predict death, right?”

“Yes, Stiles, but we’ve already tried that.”

“What if the third key is someone who isn’t dead?”

A lot of the people listed are still alive.  They have a chance to save an entire list of innocent supernaturals, even their _friends_ , but it all rides on Lydia correctly predicting someone’s death.  Maybe they can save that person too.  Predicting death doesn’t mean it has to happen.

Stiles’ heart is in his throat as Lydia closes her eyes, her shaking fingers hovering over the computer keys.  He knows she’s thought the same thing, that maybe she can prevent someone’s death, because she’s told him so many times that she’s tired of being too late.  That there’s no point in her having this power if nothing good can ever come of it.  He’s about to tell her to relax, that the name will come to her when it’s supposed to, but then she starts typing.

_D-E-R-E-K_

Of course it’s Derek.  They can’t go through one single supernatural crisis without someone wanting to kill him.  Unfortunately, if Stiles’ count is correct, Derek is running low on lives, and he’s been acting less wolfy (which means he’s not jumping into a fight quite as quickly as he did a few months ago) and Stiles knows there’s something up with him.  

Stiles also has a really, really bad feeling about this.

Before he even realizes she’s moved, Lydia is on the phone with Parrish to see if he can get them another meeting with Meredith.  Stiles can’t make out much from the other end of the phone, but he hears enough.  There won’t be any more information from Meredith, because she’d hung herself in her room.

Stiles’ stomach drops as he watches Lydia slowly crumble in on herself.  He pulls her into his chest and tries to offer some amount of comfort, but he’s never really been that good at it.  Stiles didn’t have any ties to Meredith like Lydia did, so while she’s mourning the loss of a potential friend, someone who knew what she was going through and could possibly help her understand her power, Stiles can only think that they’ve lost their most valuable resource and that Meredith is probably the first of many names to be crossed off.  It might make him feel like an awful person, but he’s the only one who doesn’t have to fear for his life right now.  Someone has to think about this from the outside.

He assures Lydia that they’ll figure it out, but it doesn’t seem like she believes him.

He’s not sure he believes himself either.

\--

By the time he gets home he’s convinced himself that all of their efforts are going to end in pain and suffering and nothing else; that sleepless nights and constantly looking over their shoulders is all they’re going to have as long as this list is circulating and there are assassins willing to take them on. With every passing second it feels more and more like they’re never going to find the source, that he’s going to be the only one left standing when all is said and done, simply because he’s not supernatural. 

It’s not the first time Stiles regrets taking Scott into the woods the night he was bitten, but it is the first time Stiles has wondered what would be happening now if it had been him that turned.  Would anything be different?  Would he be looking at this from a completely different angle, or would he send everyone away to deal with the incoming attacks on his own? Would he be feeling just as dejected as a wolf as he does right now as a very tired human?

Stiles types and sends a message without really thinking about its recipient.

<< What are we doing?

>> …Trying to save lives?

Turns out he’d picked Danny.  It could be worse; he could have texted Greenberg.

<<But why? So we can do this all over again next month?

>> Are you okay?

<< I need a BREAK, Danny. We all do.  
<< It just feels like it’s never going to come.

Seconds later his phone vibrates in his hand, and he contemplates ignoring it, not really in the mood to have an actual conversation, but then it rings again.  And again.

“You rang?” he answers.

“Did you know that Jackson’s petrified of swans?”

Stiles frowns. “I’m sorry?”

“Jackson,” Danny replies. “Scared shitless of swans. He’s also _terrible_ at Mario Kart.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the insane amount of mileage I can get out of that information, but why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” Danny says. “You asked why we’re doing this. Moments like that are why we’re doing this. And you also sounded like you could use a laugh.”

“You,” Stiles mutters, relaxing into his pillows.  “You’re a nice person, Danny.”

“I know,” he replies, matter of fact.

“But modest, you are not.”

Danny laughs on the other end, bright and easy, and it’s the nicest thing he’s heard in days. Stiles isn’t feeling entirely hopeful just yet, but talking about something that’s not even in the same universe as assassination is helping him relax.  Danny must sense that, because he goes on to tell Stiles stories about his childhood, the summers he spent with his aunt in Hawaii, the time he took Jackson with him and learned that his best friend and water don’t mix. The disaster that was Jackson discovering he was allergic to chocolate.  The time Danny busted his lip open on his bike handlebars when he’d tried to jump a wooden ramp in his backyard.  The stories are a mix of absolute teenage idiocy and heartwarming, and soon Stiles finds himself dozing off to the sound of Danny’s voice in his ear.

“Stiles,” Danny whispers.

“Hm?”

“We’re going to figure this out.”

“If you say so,” he mutters.

It’s the last thing he remembers before giving in to the call of sleep completely.

\--

So that thing about new information he mentioned earlier?  It just keeps happening.

First, they discover Parrish is supernatural, and now they’ve discovered that a whole _pack_ of werewolves has been living in the surrounding area for god knows how long, and no one knew about it.  What the hell else have they missed?  Are there koalas hanging in the far reaches of the preserve too?

Unfortunately, according to the little amount of information he got from Scott and Derek, most of the other pack were wiped out.  By what, they don’t know yet.  All he knows is that there are only a few left, their leader is a serious badass, and Braeden’s been taken to the hospital.  They’re no closer to finding out who the Benefactor is, no closer to finding the source of the deadpool, and no closer to saving anybody than they were five minutes before he got the call.

It’s all starting to seem really hopeless.

\--

He dreams that night.

Everyone is gone.  They’re all on the ground, the pack, Braeden, his dad, all of them dead, and he’s in the middle of them all, blood on his hands.  There’s so much blood, and he doesn’t know who it came from, if he’s even the one that spilled it, but it’s there and he can’t breathe.  There’s no one left and he couldn’t save them, he can never save them, he just --

He wakes up in a cold sweat, clinging to his pillow as he shoots straight up.  He switches on the light and tries to calm his breathing as he lifts his hand and counts.

_5...4...3...2...1_

It was just a dream, he tells himself.  None of it was real.  He’s safe, in his room, where everything is where it’s always been.  The snoring he hears from his dad’s room down the hall helps him calm down a little more, because it means his dad’s home and breathing and well.  

He wonders how many times he can watch his friends fall apart before none of them can be put back together again.  Wonders how many times he can watch them die at his own hands before he starts to believe he’s capable of it.  He wonders when they’re finally going to catch a break, because they really need one.   _He_ needs one, so desperately.  Maybe once this is over he’ll finally work on getting himself back to pre-bite Stiles.  One who could laugh and smile without having to force it even a little.

He spends the rest of the night staring at the ceiling trying to convince himself that someday the dreams won’t stick with him for so long after they’re over.  It doesn’t really work, but it’s a nice thought.

\--

_I may have learned to control my anger, but I still know when to use it_.

\--

So Stiles’ life might be in more imminent danger than he’d anticipated.

Everything had been fine on the school front, despite the absolute chaos reigning outside of it, so he can’t help but laugh to himself because _of course_ the PSAT test is a trap.

It takes all of 30 minutes to go from standardized testing to a complete lockdown quarantine.  No cell phones.  No wifi.  Nothing.  He gets that they’re trying to stop any potential panic in the outside world should this turn out to be serious, but all the CDC have succeeded in doing so far is pissing him off.  This whole thing stinks of the Benefactor and he needs information _now_.

Right after he gets all of his friends quarantined away from the actual quarantine.

It sounded better in his head.

It’s not long before he gets sick along with the rest of them; he’s lightheaded and cold and desperately wants a nap, but he fights to stay awake and coherent because whatever’s affecting him has to be affecting his friends even more.  Odds are that he won’t die, but they probably will.

They manage to make it into the vault without telling Malia about her true lineage, but it’s a close call.  She’s just sick enough that she can’t hear the lie in Scott’s heartbeat when he says he can’t control his claws.  Stiles knows he has to tell her, and soon, but how do you just _tell_ someone that they’re adopted?  He’s not the only one who’s been lying to her, but he is the closest to her out of anyone in their group of friends.  It’s going to hurt her more when she finds out that he’d kept this to himself for the duration of their friendship than if it came from, say, Lydia.

But right now he’s more concerned with whether or not they’ll all be alive when he gets back to the vault, hopefully with some answers.  She’s trying to keep a brave face as he wraps his jacket around her to keep her warm, and it makes him ache.  He’s been able to rely on her strength so much in the last few months, through nightmares and panic attacks, and it makes him wish that he could return the favor right now when she needs him most, but he can’t.  He barely feels strong enough to keep himself on his feet right now.  He’s not even sure he has enough in his reserves to be concerned with himself.  He’s going to push it, though, because these are his friends, these are some of the best people he knows, and the world needs them in it.

So he walks out of the vault and doesn’t look back when he hears it grinding shut.  It sounds final enough as it is.

\--

The longer he runs around the school looking for clues, the worse he feels.  He’s cold down to his bones, can feel a thin sheen of sweat dampening the back of his shirt as his body tries to fight whatever’s happening to him.  He’s weak and his vision is blurry and he’s sick to his stomach, just like in the days after the nogitsune left his body for good.  He’s so tired, he just wants to rest, but he refuses to let his friends die when he knows he can help.

He figures out the delivery method while raiding Coach’s office, and if the man in the doorway holding a gun is any indication, he’s also discovered the assassin of the day.  All in all, this is basically his worst nightmare come to life, only now it’s got the added bonus of being held at gunpoint by a guy who wants to kill all of his friends.

His eyes are closed and he’s resigned himself to dying right here and now.  There’s a gunshot, followed by a spray of something warm on his face.  He recovers quickly enough to see his would-be killer fall to the floor, a hole in the middle of his forehead.  Mr. McCall is standing in the doorway wearing a hazmat suit, gun raised as a tiny wisp of smoke floats from the barrel.  

“You okay?”  Stiles can only nod.

“Stiles, listen,” Mr. McCall urges.  “I got a call from Melissa.  I don’t know what it means.  She said there’s an antidote. It’s in a vault, reishi mushrooms.”

“In a vault?”

“It’s in a jar on one of the shelves.  She said to tell Scott it’s _in_ the vault.”

He runs.

He runs and he runs and he runs.  Towards his friends, away from the panic attack rising in his chest, away from the memories of his possession and how much his body remembers enjoying the sight of blood.  He’s yelling for Scott, begging for his best friend to hear him through a thick layer of stone that there’s an antidote in the room with them if they could just _find it_.  He beats against the wall and yells, keeps yelling until he feels like he can’t anymore.  It’s just...it’s all too much.  He can’t handle this anymore, can’t deal with the inevitability of losing his friends or his dad or himself.  He slowly slides to the floor, ready to give up, when it opens.

The last vestiges of his adrenaline are what push him over the threshold and into the vault.  Scott and Kira are leaning against each other, looking worse for wear but no less alive for it.  Malia’s sitting exactly where he left her, but she never looks up to greet him.  Instead, she pushes him away when he reaches for her, sitting in front of him long enough to hand him what he knows is the second list, before standing and walking away without a word.

He lets her go, because there’s nothing he can say that will make this any less of a betrayal.  He’s not sure it would fix anything anyway.

\--

<< You know how parents like to say “it won’t kill you” when you don’t want to do something?  
<< Turns out that’s not always true.

>> Everyone okay?

Stiles thinks about the Chemist and how he still needs to wash the man’s blood off his face and burn his clothes.  It’s a real shame; Stiles really liked that hoodie.

<< Everyone who matters.

>> Call me later.

Stiles is going to pretend that his heart didn’t just skip a beat.

<< Will do.

\--

That night, he finds himself dialing Danny’s number without a thought.  Maybe it’s because he has no one else to call who won’t panic when they see his number. Maybe it’s because Danny doesn’t know what he’s done, what Stiles has been through, and Stiles could use someone who doesn’t feel the need to walk on eggshells around him.  He’s tired of everyone being so worried all the time.  He’s not okay, but he’s getting _better_ , and no one seems to recognize that.  Or, maybe, instead of being a helpful resource, he needs someone to be a resource for him for once.

“ ‘lo?”

Shit.  “Did I wake you up?”

“Kind of,” Danny murmurs.  Stiles can hear sheets rustling in the background.  “I have to get up soon anyway so it’s not like it matters.”

“Take it from the one who knows about sleep deprivation,” Stiles replies as he nestles down into his own pile of sheets.  “Every second counts.”

“I take it you still look like hell?”

Stiles hums in consideration.  “I’d say more fourth circle, less seventh.”

“Well then you’re halfway there.”

Isn’t that the sad truth?  “That’s sort of the story of my life.”

“What do you mean?”

That’s the moment Danny becomes that resource for him, because before he can stop it, Stiles tells him everything.  He tells him about feeling responsible for Scott being bitten, and for everyone looking at Derek like he’s some sort of criminal.  The months he spent lying to his dad, the guilt he feels over not paying more attention to Erica and Boyd when they were so obviously pulling away from the rest of the pack.  Not knowing who to trust when the Alpha pack was around.  The nights spent staring at his computer screen, bleary-eyed and exhausted but unable to stop because he refused to let anyone else die.

“Stiles,” Danny says, voice soft.  “It’s not --”

And then he tells Danny about the nogitsune and the days he spent trapped in his own body while he watched himself do terrible, awful things in the name of chaos.  How he remembers piecing together a bomb meant for his father, how he stabbed his own best friend in the gut, twisting the katana when Scott’s pain wasn’t enough to sate the nogitsune’s need.  He’s got bits and pieces of what the nogitsune did with the Oni when he himself was too weak to stay awake.  The phantom feeling of a smile crossing his lips as Lydia screamed for Allison in the tunnels.  How he can’t stand to be in the same room as Chris because all he can think about is how much the last little tendrils of the demon in him had loved feeling the light go out of Allison’s eyes.  God, just thinking about it makes him want to be sick.

He talks.  He talks and talks until he’s hoarse and silent tears stream down his face.  It’s about as cathartic as getting dental work, but he recognizes that it’s necessary.  This has been building for months, and no amount of cuddling from Malia or reassurances from Scott were going to let him get over this any faster. Forgiveness is something that’s very hard to practice when you have to direct it at yourself.

“Stiles, it’s not your fault.  None of that is on you.”

He lets out a shuddering breath as he furiously wipes away the tears on his cheeks. “Sure feels like it.”

“Would you let Scott blame himself if the roles had been reversed?”

“That’s a dirty play.”

“That doesn’t make it less true,” Danny replies.  “You fought, Stiles. You did as much as you could. Your friends can’t ask any more of you than that.”

He wants to say that Danny’s right, none of his friends have ever asked him for more than what they knew he could offer, but there’s a part of him who will always believe that he could have done more to let them know what was happening in his head. He doesn’t remember all of it, he hopes he never will, but the knowledge that something had control over him, something he didn’t know was there for so long, makes his skin crawl.  He hates having to count his fingers four months later, that the nightmares are still just as bad even if they’re slightly less frequent, that he can go through days of just drifting through the motions before snapping back to reality. There’s so much lost time he’ll never have back, so many things his body remembers doing but his mind doesn’t, and that’s going to linger for a very long time.

“But it’ll eventually get easier to live with.”

“Did I say that out loud?” Stiles croaks.

“I’ll only say yes if it’s something you wanted me to know,” Danny replies.

The funny thing is, he really doesn’t mind Danny knowing.  He’s surprised at how much it doesn’t bother him. He’s always liked Danny, but something feels different about this conversation. They’ve always exchanged witty banter when Stiles wasn’t asking if he was attractive to gay guys.  But tonight, with everything that’s hanging over them, they’re actually _talking_ to each other, and Stiles has to admit that it’s kind of nice. He wonders why he never actually tried doing this with Danny before.

“Because I have little patience for people who ask me the same question over and over, that’s why.”

Stiles blushes. “I have gotto stop thinking out loud.”

“Don’t,” Danny replies. “It’s kind of cute.”

“I am a lot of things, Danny Mahealani, but _cute_ is not one of them.”

There’s a long pause after that.  Stiles is trying to think of something to say that doesn’t sound incredibly flirtatious, but that seems to be the only direction this conversation could go in.  

“Let someone else be the judge of that.”

Stiles’ heart leaps into his throat.  “Are you offering?” he asks, voice barely more than a whisper.

“I’ll never tell,” Danny teases.

It shocks a laugh out of Stiles.  He’d imagined this conversation going in many different directions, but this hadn’t even made the list.  Danny’s actually flirting with him.  Stiles actually finds himself smiling a real smile for the first time in weeks.

“Listen, Jackson and I have plans today, so I need to go, but I have to ask you something first.”

“What’s up?”

“Be honest. Do you need me to come back to Beacon Hills?” 

Stiles sighs.  “I don’t need another person to worry about.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Danny replies.  “So let’s try this again: do you _want_ me to come back?”

He pauses for a second, considering.  “Honest answer?”

“Yes, Stiles.”  If Stiles isn’t mistaken, Danny might sound a little bit fond.

“Maybe.”

“Okay. It’s a start.”  He can hear Danny wrestling with the sheets as, Stiles assumes, he gets out of bed to begin the day.  “Let me know if that changes.  Jackson’s rich.  I can be on the next flight out.”

“Noted.”

“And Stiles?”

“Yes, Danny?” he mocks.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

And with that, Danny hangs up, leaving Stiles gaping at his phone while he sinks back into his pillows.  

Never let it be said that Danny isn’t full of surprises.

\--

_When you’re a human facing off against the supernatural, you need to bend the rules a little bit_.

\--

Just when he thought they were out of dumb ideas, they decide to kill Scott.

No, really.  They’re gonna kill him. To death.

The plan is to use Kira’s foxfire to slow Scott’s heart down to practically-dead, but not completely dead, to trick the Benefactor into coming to the hospital himself for visual confirmation. Stiles and Kira and Liam will be hacking into the hospital cameras in an empty patient room while Argent guards Scott’s body in the morgue.  Once the Benefactor shows up, they’ll get the information they need in whatever way they need, and all will once again be right with the world.  And by that, he means no professional assassins and at least one full night of rest a week.

It doesn’t really go like it’s supposed to, which shouldn’t surprise Stiles as much as it does.

It takes all of fifteen minutes before he’s standing next to a hospital bed all by himself, Kira and Liam having left to check out why the camera on the roof has cut out. All of them go black one by one until the whole hospital is dark, and Liam and Kira aren’t back, and Stiles would like for everyone to know that he thought this was a terrible idea from the start.  

He decides to stay, though, just for a little while, to see if there’s anything, _anything_ at all he can take to Chris that might help them determine who the Benefactor is. As he watches the numbers on his screen count down on the time Scott has left to still maybe be kind of alive, he thinks about all the ways this entire experience has gone wrong. Derek got de-aged, Liam got bit, assassins have flocked to Beacon Hills to kill all of his friends, Kate’s still out there, and then there’s Malia.

Stiles knows he should have just told her the truth the second he found out.  They’re friends, and really good friends at that, and they’ve looked out for each other for a while now.  They _trust_ each other, and Stiles should have trusted that she could handle the news of Peter being her father.  If she couldn’t handle it, then she’d at least have had him to fall back on.  He would have helped her, talked to her, anything she needed, but then he kept putting it off for so long that telling her hadn’t seemed like an option anymore.

_Look how well that worked out_ , he thinks.   _The person who’s been with you night after night while you had nightmares won’t talk to you because you couldn’t be honest with her._

He’ll make it up to her somehow.  He’ll make it right.

But first he has to go make sure his best friend is still only mostly dead.

\--

In the end, the plan fails pretty spectacularly.

Kate, of all people, shows up in the morgue and kicks the shit out of just about everyone.  Kate Argent, who will always make him feel a mix of terrified and furious.  He hates her, hates her so much for what she did to Derek, which eventually lead to all of this happening to Scott, and he wishes she would just fucking _disappear_ already.  

He can’t blame Chris for not being able to kill his own sister, but that would have been a really easy fix to at least three of their problems, and right now they need all the help they can get.

Kira and Liam find their way to the morgue with just enough time to bring Scott back before the clock runs down.  It’s nice to see him breathing again, but he still looks frighteningly pale, and Kira has blood on her face and Liam just looks downright terrified.  It’s a no-win situation all around, which brings the overall mood of the group down.

He didn’t even know that was possible. He should be used to being wrong by now.

\--

Danny picks up on the second ring.  “Everything okay?”

Stiles sighs.  “You want the good news or the bad news first?”

“I feel like the definition of ‘good’ is used loosely here, but go for it.”

“Well, good news is Scott’s alive.”

“Are you implying that at some point today he wasn’t?”

“Moving on,” Stiles interrupts.  He needs to talk about a lot of things, but he needs to process the sight of his very nearly dead best friend before discussing it.  “Bad news, we still aren’t any closer to finding the Benefactor.”

“Worse news,” Danny replies.  “Neither am I.”

After a long pause, Stiles asks the question he’s had rolling around in his head for days. 

“Do you think we’ll figure it out in time?”

Danny snorts.  “With that amount of optimism I’m surprised we haven’t already.”

“Always with the jokes,” he sighs.

“Hey,” Danny protests.  “We can do this. We just…need a new perspective, okay?”

Stiles really hopes that Danny’s right, because hope is running thin and, even worse, they’re running out of time.

\--

_I was set on fire. All of me should be gone_.

\--

So Parrish is definitely supernatural, and now he knows it.  Awesome.

Also, Stiles’ dad went and got himself shot.  Which is great, really, because they totally have the cash to pay another hospital bill.  This is decidedly not awesome.

After the Sheriff gives in to the sweet, sweet comfort of the morphine drip, Stiles sits in his uncomfortable hospital chair and watches over him.  It makes him think of the nights his dad must have done the same for him after his mom died, after the nogitsune, after every nightmare that he was home to witness.  The thought weighs heavy in his gut, because all they have to show for all that mutual support is a staggering number of bills and the cold comfort of knowing that Stiles is back in control of his own body.  Before the Benefactor, Stiles was starting to think that an uphill turn of events was on the horizon, that something would come along to help carry some of the weight.  But now, he’s pretty sure they'll be playing catch-up forever.

He leaves the room after a few long moments of staring at his dad’s heart monitor, reaching for his phone as he sits in an empty stairwell, and calls the only person he feels like talking to at the moment.  In hindsight, his opening line might not be the best.

“So, my dad got shot,” he blurts when the call is connected.  “Danny?”

“Sorry,” Danny replies, though he really just sounds confused.  “I was waiting for you to follow up on that statement with a report of his condition.”

“Oh.”

There’s a sigh from the other end.  “How is he?”

“He’s fine.  Drugged up and waiting for surgery, but fine.”

After that, things get...he doesn’t want to say _awkward_ , because he’s not uncomfortable, but it does get _quiet_ , and silence is sometimes a situational struggle for him.  In the weeks after the nogitsune he needed constant noise, just to be assured that he wasn’t in that white, endless room.  Those moments have been few and far between in the months since, which is the only reason why he knows he’s making any progress at all.

“Stiles, did you call for a Benefactor-related reason, or do you just miss the sound of my voice?”

His breath hitches in his throat.  Does he want to entertain this?  Danny’s amazing, and he’s been a bigger help than he knows in the last few weeks even though he hasn’t been able to find much, but Stiles isn’t sure that he can let it go on, whatever _it_ is.  He’s pretty much always in danger and hanging out with a pack of werewolves, and Danny didn’t want anything to do with that.  Their worlds just...they don’t mix.  He can’t get out and Danny doesn’t want in, but maybe --

“What would you do if I said yes?”

Maybe sometimes you should allow yourself to make a potentially catastrophic decision in a situation that doesn’t immediately involve death.  Maybe sometimes they turn out to be good decisions.

“Your history of being a motor mouth says otherwise,” Danny laughs.

“I’m offended by your implication that I talk too much.”

“Stiles,” Danny replies.  “You’ve never been quiet a day in your life.”

The words are out before he can stop them.  “Feels like all I am anymore is quiet.”

He may not speak much sometimes, but he still knows how to make things awkward.

“So tell me about London.”

Danny chuckles to himself, but tells Stiles anyway.  He listens as Danny lists off all of the interesting places he’s wandered into while Jackson was in school (walking by the Tower of London, to touring the Charles Dickens museum, because Danny secretly has a thing for British literature) and Stiles finds it so easy to picture the streets full of people and the rain and how breathtaking it must be to stand in front of historical monuments.  From the way Danny describes it, Stiles thinks he might like to see it for himself sometime.  Beacon Hills  has always been the place for Stiles and he knows that, but he’d like to see the world a little before settling down in a nine-to-five life.  Perhaps the next time Danny visits Jackson, Stiles will find a way to tag along.

He tosses in a few comments here and there that let Danny know he’s still paying attention, but he’s happy to sit and have a conversation about _good_ things.  It does wonders for Stiles’ mood, and if Danny’s enthusiasm is anything to go by, it’s helping him too.

By the time Melissa finds him to tell him they’re prepping his dad for surgery, forty-five minutes have passed and Stiles feels less like the world is on his shoulders.  Instead, the weight feels more like a small mountain.  He’s about to tell Danny that he has to go when Danny beats him to it.

“Go.  Your dad needs you.”

“Aw, Danny,” Stiles coos.  “You make it sound like you’ll miss me.”

There’s a long pause before Danny responds.  “What would you do if I said yes?”

That is...not what Stiles was expecting him to say.  Up until this point it’s all been joking with a few serious moments thrown in, but this is actual flirting.  Not to say that flirting would be a bad thing - quite the opposite, actually - he’s just --

“Um, Stiles?”

Incredibly unprepared.  That’s what he is.  But this isn’t a bad kind of unprepared.

“Ask me when you come home?”

“What?”

Stiles smiles into the receiver.  “Ask me that when you come home.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Danny lets out a shuddering breath.  “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I said okay,” Danny laughs.

He takes a moment to throw a celebratory fist in the air, but stops abruptly.  “Holy shit.”

“I know.”

“You totally just pulled a _Fault in Our Stars_ on me.”

“Yeah -- wait, what?”

“Gotta go, Danny,” Stiles says as he leaves the stairwell and makes his way to the OR.  “Call you later.”

This time Stiles gets to be the one to hang up.  Danny will just have to figure the reference out on his own.  Ten minutes later, his phone buzzes with a text.

>> This is the farthest thing from a John Green book about cancer love.

<< Whatever you say, Daniel.

\--

His happiness is short-lived, however, when Lydia discovers a _fourth_ list, only these people, according to Parrish, are already dead.  The best part?  They all died in Eichen House. 

Stiles is really, really tired of Eichen House.

He and Lydia drive there anyway and bribe Brunsky (at least in the best way two teenagers can) for access to the records room.  Technically Lydia bribes him, because while she’s broke too, she’s _less_ broke than he is.  The next thing he knows he’s asking Lydia why his name has been added to the list when Brunsky tasers him, and then it’s lights out.

\--

He’s really, really tired of being locked in rooms with murderers.

Turns out that Brunsky knew more than he was letting on, especially when it comes to Lydia.  He plays the tape of Lorraine’s last conversation, and Stiles tries to distract Lydia, he tries so hard, but you can only ask so much of someone who’s tied up in the basement of a psych facility, listening to the last words of a beloved relative.  He can feel her shaking from where his fingers touch her wrist, can hear her sniffling as she cries, and it makes him furious.  No one deserves to be put through this, especially not someone like Lydia, who’s still struggling to figure out what all these new parts of her mean for her place in the world.

The real kick to the gut comes when Lydia hears that her grandmother’s last word was her nickname.  Stiles never wanted someone he cared about to know how that felt.

After that, everything is a blur.

Stiles is fighting his restraints.  Brunsky has a needle in Lydia’s neck.  Parrish shows up and pulls his trigger.  Maybe he’s not just a pretty face after all.

As Stiles is undoing the cuffs around his wrists, their case blows wide open.

“She was controlling me,” Brunsky exhales, right before he dies.

“He wasn’t on my list,” comes a voice from the back of the room.  “But he was a bad person.”

“Holy shit,” Stiles whispers.

Standing in front of them, very much _not_ dead, is Meredith Walker.

They may have figured out who the Benefactor is, but as far as he’s concerned, the shit just hit the fan.

\--

It takes an hour for him to get more than five seconds alone, but after asking an officer six times for a bathroom break, he’s finally allowed out of the room they’ve been holding him in.  The second the door shuts, he pulls out his phone and dials.

“What do you need?” Danny asks.  Before Stiles can even ask how he knew that Danny’s speaking again.  “I had a feeling.”

“Okay,” Stiles exhales.  “I’ve got like 30 seconds before an officer comes looking for me, so I have to make this quick.  Give me everything you can find on Meredith Walker.  She’s a patient at Eichen House.”

“The dead girl?” Danny asks.

“Not so dead anymore.  But she’s very much the Benefactor.”

“Stiles --”

“The list is still out there, Danny,” he replies.  “It’s still out there and she’s not talking.  I don’t know what to do, but you might be able to find something, _anything_ , that could help --”

“I’m on it, Stiles,” he assures gently.  “You okay?”

Stiles snorts.  “Ask me when you come home.”

“Will do,” Danny agrees.

They both hang up without another word.

What the fuck are they gonna do now?

\--

_The truth cannot stay hidden_.

\--

Stiles is stuck in the hospital with what _might_ be a concussion when Melissa locks him and Malia in his room.

She hasn’t forgiven him, and he doesn’t blame her; it took Stiles a while to get over Scott leaving him out of his plans with Gerard.  There’s a part of her that wants to move past this, he can tell, and as much as he’d love to encourage that, she needs to make these decisions without his influence.  Yes, the pack can teach her how the average person might react to certain situations, but if she’s ever going to fully reintegrate with the world then she needs to trust the decisions she makes on her own.

When she hugs him, he immediately feels lighter.  They’re not totally okay - that’ll take more time - but for now they’re good enough to see this deadpool thing through.  They’ll work on trust when it’s done.

Everybody else is at the loft getting ready for the biggest enemy showdown that Beacon Hills has ever seen while Stiles and Malia head over to his house with the tape of Lydia’s grandma.  They spend a truly amazing amount of time rewinding and replaying, at softer and louder volumes, forwards and backwards, and after two hours, Stiles is ready to rule this out as yet another dead end, when Malia speaks up.

“I’ve heard that before.”  She turns the volume up higher, leaning in closer to the speaker.  “It’s the record player at the lake house.”

Stiles claps his hands and looks around for his keys.  “So let’s go to the lake house.”

Just like that, everything seems a little more optimistic.

\--

By the time they make it, it’s far too close to sundown for Stiles’ liking.  In less than an hour all of his friends will be fighting for their lives and the lives of supernaturals in the surrounding area, and he would really like to stop that before it has a chance to start.

They run up to the study, taking the stairs two at a time until they reach the second floor landing, panting as they run down the hall to that suddenly ominous white room.  When they get inside, everything is as they left it after the party.  Absolutely nothing is out of place, which seems odd to him, considering the amount of time Lydia’s been spending here lately.

Stiles starts looking around and under the furniture and decorations while Malia turns the record player on.  He’s expecting some sort of grand reveal now that they seem to be in the room where all of this started years ago, but all he hears is the soft scratch of the needle as it skates across the surface of the record.  The sun has almost set, if the purple sky outside the window down the hall is to be believed, and Stiles can feel what little hope he had fade away with the last remains of daylight.  Any minute now his friends are going to start dying in some warehouse Argent used to own and there’s nothing Stiles can do to help.  All he’s doing is sitting in front of a record player, hoping it will reveal to him the secrets of Beacon Hills, and it’s by far the most useless he’s ever felt.

He reaches over and pulls the needle back.  “There’s nothing here.”

“Wait,” she insists, leaning closer.  “I can still hear it.”

They pull everything away from the wall, revealing a single power cord.  It’s odd, he thinks, that all of this could run on a single power source that’s not plugged into an _outlet_ , but rather something _inside_ the wall.

If they all survive this, Lydia’s going to kill him but Stiles reaches down and pulls the cord from the wall.  It all gives way much easier than expected, so he keeps pulling, watching as the line in the wall spider webs to reveal more weak points.  When he can’t pull any further, he and Malia reach in and tear away the plaster with their hands.  Behind it is, well, something you’d see in the lair of a B-movie evil antagonist.

Lydia might kill him for this, but that’s okay.

They found the deadpool.

\--

Now the question is how they’re going to shut it off.  Malia wants to take it apart with her bare hands, and normally Stiles would be totally okay with her working out her aggression in a healthy way, but if they only get one shot at this then Stiles is going to err on the side of caution.

“Call Lydia.”

“What?”

Stiles grabs his phone and opens the camera app.  “Call Lydia.  Tell her we found it.  Maybe she’ll know how to turn it off.”

While Malia dials, Stiles makes a call of his own.

“What _is_ that?” Danny asks.

“The deadpool.”

“That...that is not what I expected.”

Stiles scoffs.  “Me either.  Any ideas how to stop it?”

“Kill it with fire,” Danny replies, though it sounds more like a question.

“Think of something less destructive.”

“I got it!” Malia shouts.  He turns to see her digging through the remains of what had been, up until a few minutes ago, a very expensive bottle of wine.  Now it’s shards of glass, a giant stain, and a...key? 

“You wanna do it?” she asks, holding it out to him.

He reaches out with shaking hands and Danny’s voice in his ear trying to calm him down long enough to finish the job.  He manages to fit it into the keyhole, but his vision keeps going in and out and he can feel the beginnings of a panic attack beating at his ribs.

“Breathe, Stiles,” Danny urges.  “You need to breathe.”

“I don’t think I know how to anymore,” he croaks.

“You need to turn the key, Stiles,” Danny insists.

“Turn it, Stiles,” Malia pushes.

“It’ll all be over soon.  Just turn the key,” Danny murmurs.

So he does.

There’s sweat beading at his brow and his heart is racing, but he watches the machine power down until it stops operating completely.

“Stiles?”

“It’s done,” he tells Danny.  “I have to check on the others.  I’ll call you.”  He hangs up, accidentally dropping his phone to the floor.

“So who’s Danny?”

He turns to look at Malia, who’s wearing a mischievous grin.  “Danny?  Nobody, he -- he’s nobody.”

She hums in response.  “So you want to have sex with him.”

If there were anything for Stiles to choke on, that’s what he’d be doing.  “What?  No!”

“Lie.”

He points a finger at her.  “Stop reading my heartbeat.”  He reaches into his back pocket for his keys and makes for the door.  “Let’s go.  I want to check on the others.”

“This conversation isn’t over, you know.”

The funny part is that she’s right.  It isn’t over.  Nothing for them is ever really over, but for right now, that’s okay.  It’s over enough for him to breathe again.

\--

Later he’ll find everyone alive and healing at the loft, and it will be the best sight Stiles has ever seen.

Just for tonight, he’ll let himself relax.

Tonight, he’s not afraid to sleep.

\--

Stiles really hates being right.  It wasn’t really over after all.  In fact, it all goes downhill really fucking fast.

Scott and Kira go missing.  Deaton, of all people, figures out where they are.

Looks like they’re going back to Mexico.  Swell.

After almost causing them to crash their van, Liam gets control.

Derek gets stabbed.  Stiles can’t help but think that Derek really doesn’t deserve to go out like that, but Derek sends them all after Scott and Stiles really has no choice but to do as Derek asks.

Scott was a berserker, and then he wasn’t.  Peter was pretending to be better, and then he wasn’t.  Derek was dead, and then he wasn’t.  Kate was alive, then...well, no one’s really sure about her.

(Turns out his dad is a badass for taking out a berserker.  And also very, very pissed.  But he’ll deal with that later.)

The hardest thing about getting back to Beacon Hills is getting food.  They’re either covered in dirt or blood or a combination of the two, they have an unconscious body in the back of a van, and they really don’t need to attract any more attention than a group of teenagers crossing the border without real adult supervision is already going to get them.

It’s a long drive, but they all make it back in one piece.

Stiles gets home at a halfway decent time, for someone who just got back from a really rough trip to Mexico.  His dad is working the late shift, so he locks the front door behind him, and pulls himself up the stairs.  He was somewhat tempted to crash on the couch, but his entire body aches in ways he never knew were possible and Stiles doesn’t really need to add a stiff neck to the list of pains he needs to work out.

He gives passing thought to a shower before admitting to himself that he’d probably drown if he tried right now.  It’s a testament to how tired he is that he doesn’t realize that his bedroom light is already on until he’s already reached for the switch.

It’s not until he actually steps inside that he realizes he’s not alone.

“Danny,” he breathes.

And there he is, sitting on the edge of Stiles’ bed in a red t-shirt and dark blue jeans, a soft smile on his face as he gives Stiles elevator eyes.

“You look like hell.”

Stiles lets out a shocked laugh.  “One of these days you’re going to realize that I’m walking perfection, just the way I am.  Then where will you be?”

Danny shrugs as he stands.  “Probably here.”

“Hanging out in my room?”

“If you want.”

Stiles shuts his bedroom door before walking toward him.  Danny looks so good, relaxed and safe and _here_ and Stiles is covered in two days of sweat and grime and desert dirt, and yet this is probably going to be in the top five moments of his life to date.

They talk a little, maybe actually hold hands while still looking at each other, as they gradually start to get closer.  

“Stiles, do you not know what time it is?”

“I’ve been awake for like three days.  Time doesn’t exist right now.”

Danny laughs, nodding toward the clock.  “I think you’ll appreciate this.”

So Stiles looks, and starts laughing uncontrollably.  “It’s 9.”

“I told you I like to cuddle.”

“Can I kiss you first?”

Danny steps in, touching his forehead to Stiles’.  “I thought you’d never ask.”

It’s soft and tentative and everything Stiles never knew a kiss could be.  It’s a far cry from the kisses you read about in books, the ones where their problems magically disappear.  These are not magical healing lips; Stiles still has problems to sort through, but at least he knows that this is waiting for him at the end of a bad day.  It makes the future seem more hopeful than it has in months.

“You know,” Stiles says once they pull apart.  “There was a girl, at the blacklight party, who asked if I liked boys.”

“Oh yeah?” Danny replies, smirking.  “Anyone in particular?”

Stiles shrugs and rests his arms around Danny’s shoulders.  “Just your standard McDreamy - tall, built, goes by the name Miguel.”

Danny laughs and it’s the best thing Stiles has ever heard.  “You’re such a jackass.”

They lean into each other then, resting their foreheads against each other as they drink in the moment.  There are a lot of things that Stiles isn’t sure of at the moment: what the full shift means for Derek, what Peter being locked away means for the pack, how Scott plans to bring everyone back together. How Stiles is going to pull _himself_ back together.

“I can’t offer much,” Stiles whispers, gently brushing his nose against Danny’s.  “In case you haven’t heard, I’m kind of a mess.”

“It’s okay, Stiles.  Really,” Danny assures.  “We move at your pace. I’m happy to just be home.”

Stiles is hesitant to say that what he feels for Danny is anything stronger than an intense like, but there’s an overwhelming fondness flowing through him when he leans back to look Danny in the eye.  The guy’s smiling, the schmuck, and that dimple is making its presence known and Stiles has to lean in and kiss it.

“I think there was talk of cuddling earlier?”

Stiles always wants to hear Danny laugh the way he does right then.

A few minutes later they’re both in boxers and t-shirts, facing each other on Stiles’ bed, relaxed in the dark.  Stiles knows the nightmares aren’t over.  He might even have one tonight, and Danny’s really going to get a glimpse at what he’s signing up for.  The nights where Malia or Derek or Scott pop up in his window looking for research or a place to stay or someone to talk to are going to be especially fun.  Danny’s going to have a lot to catch up on, but judging by the way he’s looking at Stiles, like he’s a puzzle he’s determined to figure out, one he could maybe add his own pieces to one day, Stiles thinks he’ll handle it okay.

“You alright?” Danny whispers.

Stiles moves in so that his head is tucked against Danny’s chest and nods.  “For now.”

With is fingers tangled in Danny’s, he drifts off to sleep, sure that at least, for this one night, everything will be okay.

 


End file.
